Mettle
by shellalana
Summary: Caldarius finds himself alone with his thoughts, and is interrupted by someone who unexpectedly has an inkling of what he's going through.


The peace and solace of this hallway was agonizing, but everyone was asleep in their quarters, leaving the Kemessian to his thoughts and the inability to find slumber on his own. And oh, did he hate the thoughts that plagued him at such hours of the morning. Or was it night? It was difficult to tell aboard a ship with only one star to serve as a means of light and no planet rotation to differentiate the hours. Either way, he squinted at the bright orange glow coming in through the large window as Solus throbbed and breathed in a pulsing cosmic heartbeat.

Thin fingers curled against the leather of his palms, formed fists, and tensed with the anger fueled through his muscles. But this wasn't his prison cell; punching the bay window would send all the air spilling out and suffocate the others onboard. He would have the confines of his suit to keep him safe for only a few minutes longer than it would take for them to go blue in the face, and even facing that end, he found he didn't care. As far as he was concerned, the only thing that bonded them together was the end goal in seeing Rendain's head separated from his body.

"I like to come here to brood too."

The somewhat delightful female voice spiked his ire, and it took all he had not to fire his TMP into the floating hologram of the ship's computer. Not that it would do much anyway, but it could be regarded as rude and the AI had no qualms about airlocking people who rubbed her the wrong way.

His correction was on his lips before he stopped himself - that he was not, indeed, brooding - but it could be taken as protesting too much, and that would only devolve into a "you are, I'm not" situation that he didn't really want to deal with. So Caldarius merely crossed his arms over her chest, and said nothing.

"I was right, wasn't I? I think I deserve a medal. I'd pat myself on the back, if I had any hands."

Or his silence could be taken as an answer in the affirmative. He hadn't considered that option.

"... less brooding and more thinking," he answered, hoping it would regain him that small sliver of lost dignity.

"About unpleasant things?" Nova's blue eyes flickered with curiousity.

"Some of them."

"Pretty sure that's the definition of brooding. But what do I know, I'm just an artificial intelligence with the knowledge of the universe crammed into a few tiny black boxes and only having access to half the words. Calm down, Nova, it's alright, Nova. Easy for them to say, they still have all their faculties in check. Ninety percent of them, anyway."

Caldarius wasn't sure where this was coming from or why she was even confinding in him of all people, but he had the strongest urge to get out of here before she continued.

"You know what it's like for everyone to think you're unhinged and walk on eggshells around you?"

Her words gripped him by the gut and rooted him in place. A note of understanding, though small, was more than he'd had with the others.

"... more than you realize." Caldarius' back plates shuddered in response, the light hum of their engines stuttering before kicking back into full force. That was the problem with his kind, outside of being Sustained: living that long exposed him to a lot of things he'd prefer forgetting.

Those long days and nights in that prison cell, having no one to talk to except his data recorder...

The others had heard his audio notes too, his mad rantings after years, if not decades, of solitude. Written him off as an angry suit of armour, capable enough to help them with their cause to fend off the Varelsi and take down Rendain. Outside of battle, however, no one paid him any mind, save for the other Jennerit. And even then, casual conversation was rare with them.

Another shudder of his wings, and he righted them again once he drew himself back into the present.

"Except I really am, you know. They all think I'm blissfully unaware of my condition, that I don't know what's going on. But I do." Nova's flickering image continued to dance and pixelate in the corner of his vision, and even faded for a full second before coming back online. He hesitated to guess that she was angry... but that would be an assumption that AIs had emotions.

That thought unsettled him, and his blade extended out of instinct, as if to fend off some unknown threat. The bust of Nova swiveled in surprise, but her expression remained placid. As it always did. Yet something about it felt... judgmental.

His wing plates came to rest against his back as he cut off their engines, annoyed at their constant rattling with his mood.

"My apologies." He retracted the red blade, a few threads of red lightning arcing down his arm in the process. This was why he hated the quiet so much; being out in battle kept him busy and away from his thoughts. It was the only outlet afforded to him when no one would engage him in conversation.

"Heh, that's funny," Nova muttered, the pixels and static of her visage fading until she appeared... _whole_. For once, Caldarius could finally make out the lines and curves of the AI's face and cheekbones, the way the right side of her mouth tilted up slightly into a permanent, knowing smirk. Her features were graceful. Elegant. Almost regal, if he had to put a real word to it.

Lenore had looked that way too the first time he'd laid eyes on her. The graceful face of his enslaver, and he wanted nothing more than to rip it off her pretty neck and stamp it to paste beneath his feet.

"Feeling fidgety, are you?" Nova's voice tugged him from his unfulfilled desires as she nodded towards his arm.

His blade was out again.

With a huff, he withdrew it once more, annoyed that someone, _anyone_ , was seeing him this... vulnerable.

"You find my apology amusing?" he asked, redirecting their converation so that he wouldn't have to explain away the "malfunction" of his weapon.

"I find it amusing you'd apologize at all, to a bunch of ones and zeros dancing around in cyberspace." The image of her seemed to swell and deflate, as if she were sighing. "You're the first, to be honest."

"Hmph." Caldarius crossed his arms over his chest, not knowing of any better way to respond to the somewhat-compliment. Or was it just an observation? He wasn't very good at social interactions unless it involved driving his blade into another's chest cavity.

Minutes passed.

The silence only grew more awkward and agonizing.

"Would you like to hear what space radiation sounds like?" Nova finally queried, breaking the monotonous void that had enveloped them. "It does help to keep the screaming voices at bay."

"... that would be-" _Delightful. Wonderful. Better than the twitch of his knife and wings once more_. "... acceptable."

"You got it."

The din that filled the hallway soothed his nerves, and he felt his shoulders sag with the sudden blast of cosmic waves and obscure notes in a conductor-less song. The beginnings and deaths of the heavenly bodies that are and once were, portal blooms and dead stars and darkened planets that may never be again. Sound waves that would stretch on forever into the endless void of space. Would they waver and fade eons from now, or would the notes remain consistent, long after the current denizens had become dust?

"This is... soothing," he begrudgingly grumbled, his arms falling to his sides.

"I had a feeling you'd say that..."


End file.
